Seppelt Drumborg Vineyard Riesling 2021

Former Wolf Blass winemaker, Clare Dry, took up senior winemaking reins at Seppelt in November last year.
Months later, with the start of harvest in the small Western Victorian town of Drumborg, she was granted a gift: a great vintage.

La Niña had been kind to the grapes producing a mild ripening season and, unusually, for one of the most southern, coldest dots on the Victorian wine map, the weather remained dry throughout with little wind. The result is a blinder of a wine.

A rush of florals opens the bouquet, all white flowers and citrus blossom. So welcoming, as is the lemony-grapefruit freshness, lime zest, musk and orange peel. It’s the scent of spring.

Drumborg riesling is traditionally low in alcohol – 11% here – which makes the wine’s textural pleasure all the more astounding. Or, maybe not. Clare Dry admits to introducing a few “different” winemaking techniques to this wine such as whole bunch pressing, and employing different levels of solids from the grape skins and pulp in the fermentation. It works beautifully on a number of levels, elevating what is usually an arms-and-legs kind of youthfulness – it was only bottled at the end of May – into something that arrives in the glass fully-formed and complex. 

Ultimately, this is a riesling to excite. It is also a riesling that stays true to past Drumborg releases and the joy many feel about Henty riesling in general. You could write a book about the sheer juiciness of Henty’s cool climate, natural-born acidity. The mouth waters, literally.

The 2021 Drumborg riesling is all round long, intense, lip-smackingly good.